This and That

As far as I’m concerned, the people who have turned up the notch on protests of Donald Trump are making a massive strategic mistake. I totally get their frustration and desire to shut him down, but doing so the way the protesters are creates a desire in others to support him. I believe the better approach is to let him speak and have the power of his stupid ideas be revealed. It is better to know how evil sounds than to completely squelch it.

I’d like to know how some people have cannons for arms and others don’t. I’m talking baseball here. I played little league as a kid and slow pitch softball for a few years as an adult. Coached my kids in baseball as well. I never had a strong arm and on those rare occasions when I decided to try to throw it far, my accuracy was completely shot. No telling where the ball would go if I tried to throw it hard. But there are these people out there who can throw the ball for what seems like miles, on a line, right to their target. My brother played a few years of slow pitch softball also. A friend of his played left field and at least once every game there was an opportunity to see magic. Somebody would hit the ball over his head. He would run the ball down and then turn towards home plate and unleash a rocket that stayed on a straight line until it got to home plate. And the same things happen in the Major Leagues. There are outfielders who can barely get the ball back to the infield and others who turn and fire those rockets to home plate. I want to know how they do it.

Here’s a picture for you…

I woke up this morning from a dream, which rarely happens. And the event in the dream that woke me up was a bit of a shocker. Within a couple of minutes of waking up, I was convinced that event would form the basis for a great short story. A little later I went for a run and started thinking about it. Identifying some scenes and ideas about how to pull the story along. Now, a few hours later, as I sit down and ponder writing it … I’m already bored with the idea. And that, in a nutshell, describes the difficulties I’m having with writing these days.

So, I’ll soldier on. I’ve decided to take a painting class.

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9 responses to “This and That”

Like you, the other night I woke up from a dream I was convinced would make a great story. Before I fell back asleep, I mapped out scenes and characters. It was still fairly fresh in my mind come morning, so since I didn’t have time to jot it down, I figured I’d remember it. I figured wrong. It’s nothing but a feathery memory now. Sigh.

I’ve seen a lot of films of the protests. People are led by the mainstream media to believe it is the protesters causing the problem. In most of the films, it is Trump’s supporters starting trouble with the protesters by grabbing their signs and ripping them to pieces and throwing punches. I get what you’re saying, though. No need to be the fool. Let him be his own fool.

Thanks for the pretty picture. Was that long the American River? I’m fascinated by people with tremendous athletic talent like I am by music prodigies. Once upon a time, I could run like the wind. By the time I was sixteen, I was married with child, so you know where that energy went.

I had a dream, also, that I thought would make a good story. I jotted notes in a notebook, but when I went back over the notes it didn’t gel.

The difficulty with the protests is that they won’t be able to control the narrative. Those who are looking for a reason to vote for Trump will see in the protests the reason to vote for him. He offers, whether you and I agree that he actually does, a solution to the risk of anarchy. And the protesters are offering a view of what anarchy would look like.

Yes, the picture is from the American River from January.

This morning when I woke up and opened my laptop, I opened a new Word document and typed in The Jump — that’s all I needed to remember the idea from the dream. I’m working on it now. We’ll see what happens with it.

I’m as perplexed as you in the difference between throwing ability. For me it is striking, or punching ability. In MMA you have some fighter who have incredible power and can achieve a knockout without even seeming to have struck that hard. And then you have other fighters who will go there whole careers and almost never achieve a knockout. Physique and muscle mass seem to play no part in this area of the sport. Technique, I guess, plays a role, but I think it largely might come down to a combination of many tiny factors.

OMG, how strange, because just as you and Carrie, I also woke from a dream a few nights ago and was sure it would make a great novel scene. Alas, it didn’t. In fact, the whole idea sucked. But before I realized how much it sucked, I pondered it during my run and became quite excited (it’s funny how even bad ideas can sound good during a run). P.S. I’ve never been able to throw a ball for crap. In fact, I suck at all sports except for running and swimming, both of which thankfully require very little eye-hand coordination.